the people who pour their heart and soul are the people they want. i'm the kind that they don't want: software engineers that have been doing IT/operations for so long that we understand & accept "good enough" and don't give a rat's ass if they don't implement something we've been working on; so long as we continue to get paid.

they search for people like you in the hopes of avoiding people like me because mind sets like mine are both more common and more difficult to manipulate.

to be clear: they'll still shit on you like they do to anyone else, but know that you're the kind of people that they want and, if you can figure out how to leverage that for yourself, you'll be doing very well.